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I think that a lot of the current approach *mostly* works.  Once you've gotten here, if you have an interest in other topics, then you'll find the incubator.  If you haven't gotten here or don't have any interest in the topics beyond your own, then...tough?

That said, a couple of ideas come to mind that might improve things.

First, maybe set a (soft) expiration date on proposals.  If the person making the proposal can't drum up a certain amount of activity - already here or by recruiting people from their own audiences - within a certain amount of time, then that site won't work here for now.  At that point, it doesn't make much sense to let people hope that their day will come, though maybe someone can come along later and try again.

This, I think, solves the "people here don't get your good idea" problem, by making it clear that nobody here has responsibility for making their site idea succeed.  And "retiring" the sites that don't pass muster at least touches on the problem of having an entire site that doesn't work.

Then, incubator questions (in my opinion) need a tighter link to the proposal.  Clicking on a proposal, I should see the list of all questions destined for that proposed site.  And if I click on a question (assuming that a proposal doesn't become some lightweight version of a site), I should see something about the proposal and how to get there.  Often, questions seem to come out of nowhere, even after having kept up to date with the proposals.

Related to that link, maybe that linkage could also replace the voting.  If nobody asks or answers a question in the topic, then it doesn't really matter that a hundred people said that they'd focus their time there.  If hundreds of people ask and answer questions, then it also doesn't matter how they voted.

And sort of combining those, a proposal should *come with* at least a few questions to "seed" the topic.  One question could hypothetically flop because the author didn't make it clear, because it feels like the author's personal playground, because nobody has any interest.  When you get to a dozen or so questions by different writers, that would provide a better test.  And requiring a dozen questions off the bat would force a certain commitment and provide a test of the topic's breadth.

I don't know if any of that solves the problem, but I hope that something in there works as salvage...